


A Leap in Time

by clgfanfic



Category: Alias Smith and Jones, Quantum Leap
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-28
Updated: 2012-10-28
Packaged: 2017-11-17 06:20:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/548532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clgfanfic/pseuds/clgfanfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sam leaps into an Old West outlaw things go from bad to weird.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Leap in Time

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published in the zine Just You, Me and the Governor #7 and later in Black Ops #4 under the pen name Lynn Gill.

          Doctor Sam Beckett smiled as the young Amish couple embraced, reunited once again.

          Al stood next to the quantum physicist, a silly grin plastered on his face as they watched the two lovers.

          "Makes it all worthwhile, doesn't it," Sam whispered to the project observer.

          "That it does," Al replied, surreptitiously wiping his cheeks.  Pulling the hand-held computer link from his pocket, he punched up the link to Ziggy and wondered what their next assignment would be.  Feeling the now-familiar tingle along the fringes of his consciousness, he whispered, "Time to go, Sam."

          Sam leaped.

 

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

 

          Hannibal Heyes and Jed "Kid" Curry were in a quandary, and standing slouched in front of them, Kyle Murtry waited for the two outlaws to make a decision.

          It wasn't really his fault that they had a problem, Kyle decided.  He'd done just what Heyes and Curry had told him to do.  Just because Wheat didn't trust him and decided to check on the fuse, well, that wasn't _his_ fault.

          The dust-covered, scruffy outlaw grinned.  Well, ol' Wheat sure learned his lesson.  Yes-sir-e-bob.  That little ol' jar of nitro was mighty powerful, and Wheat was gonna be on his back for a day or two… maybe longer.  He was pure-dee lucky that he wasn't knockin' on Lucifer's gate.

          He chewed his lower lip.  _Maybe next time Wheat'll believe me when I tell 'im the fuse is just a little slow.  I know I shouldn't a'got it wet crossin' the river, but it was dry 'nough.  Heyes keeps tellin' me to wind it up inside my hat so's it'll stay dry, but it feels just like an ol' snake, wiggling around up there_.  Kyle shivered at the thought.

          He watched Heyes run his gloved hand over his dark-brown hair, then sigh.  Looking at his partner, the outlaw leader shrugged.  "Kid, I don't see that we have much of a choice here.  We can't take Lobo in; he'll shoot to kill if we get cornered – it's in his nature – and we can't risk that."

          Curry nodded.  It was true.  Lobo followed orders well enough, but he didn't have the same feelings about killing as the other members in the Devil's Hole Gang.  Besides, he was too valuable as their point-man to take inside.

          "Wheat's sayin' he'll go," the Kid added, "but I think we outta tie him to the bunk – if that's what it takes."

          Heyes nodded his agreement, then looked at Kyle.  "Okay, it looks like this is your chance to be first outlaw."

          The blond's face brightened and he flashed the pair a broken grin.  "Gee, Heyes, you don't know what this means t' me.  I've been wantin' to be first outlaw ever since you took over from Big Jim Santana.  I've been watchin' Wheat real close, too.  I know what t' do.  I—"

          "Just do what we tell you to and it'll be fine," Curry interrupted.

          "I will, Kid.  I always do."

          The two men exchanged worried glances.  "Yeah, Kyle," Heyes said, "we know."

 

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

 

          Sam blinked, waiting for his vision to clear, then looked slowly around the almost light-less building he was standing in.  It was a bank – that much was obvious – but it was different from any bank the physicist could remember seeing.  The wooden floors were not polished, the teller windows were separated from the customers by metal bars, and the two men who moved silently behind the windows were dressed in clothes he'd only seen on old television shows, or in the movies.

          _The movies!  Of course!_   He was on a movie set!  Sam scrutinized the men more closely.  Yes, it _definitely_ had to be a movie set.  The pair were dressed in western period costumes, and good ones at that.  Circa 1880 or so, he guessed, then wondered how he knew.  Quantum leaping did terrible things to the physicist's memories.

          Sam squinted in the dim light, watching.  The two men stood in front of a pair of safes nearly as tall as they were, their arms folded casually across their chests, their cowboy hats tipped back to reveal two handsome, if frowning faces in the pale light cast by a low-burning lantern sitting on the floor.  One man was dark-haired and brown-eyed.  The other man looked like he might be a couple of years younger, and he had blond hair and blue eyes.  They both wore six-guns tied down on their thighs.

          "Oh, boy," Sam said, allowing a fraction of the excitement he felt to escape.  Maybe this was a John Wayne picture!  _As long as I'm not the star, or a stunt man, this might be fun_.

          The dark-haired man glanced over his shoulder and scowled at the newly arrived physicist.  Sam smiled back nervously and wondered if they were being filmed.  Trying to be as casual as possible, he glanced around the bank, but there were no cameras that he could see.  Bending forward slightly, he squinted through a crack in the heavy velvet curtains obscuring the front windows, straining to locate the equipment he knew must be hidden in the dark.  All he was able to discern were the vague outlines of a western town.

          A frown of confusion contracted across Sam's face.  Where were the cameras?  There had to be cameras.  He couldn't possibly be—  No.  That was impossible.  He had to leap within his own lifetime.  The laws of physics couldn't be fooled.  Maybe this was a small town in Texas, or Wyoming, or Nevada, or someplace where the residents had decided to stay traditional in order to attract tourists.  Yes, that sounded like a reasonable explanation.

          _Yeah, that has to be it.  Like Plymouth Colony_ , Sam decided, remembering a summer trip he had taken with his family as a boy.

          The dark-haired man cleared his throat, catching the physicist's attention, but when Sam looked, the cowboy simply glared at him.  Sam grinned and shrugged.  The blond rolled his eyes and gave his partner an I-told-you-so look.

          Sam waited, trying to look innocent and helpful, until they turned back to the safes before he softly whispered, "Al?"  He waited a moment, then covered his mouth with his hand and repeated, "Al?"

          Both cowboys turned, leveling smoldering glances on the physicist.  Sam coughed quietly into a gloved fist.  "Al?" he hissed.  It sounded desperate.

          "Sam?" came the distant, hollow echo in reply.  "Sam, where are you?  I can hear you, but I can't see you."

          "I'm in a bank," he whispered, then cleared his throat again.

          "So am I.  Ziggy says you've here, with me, in the Bank of Fort Worth… in Texas, but I can't see you.  Something must be wrong with the alpha-wave transmission system.  This could be serious, Sam."

          Dr. Beckett frowned.  "Well, I'm…"  He looked back outside through the thin line of glass window revealed between the heavy curtains.  Nothing.  He glanced around, then moved farther into the room, finally catching sight of some letterhead on a nearby desk.  He concentrated on reading the fancy backward script in the dim light.  "…in the Bank of Fort Worth, but it looks like the 1880s.  Does it look like that to you, too?"

          "What?  Sam, are you feeling okay?" the observer demanded.

          "You heard me," Sam replied, realizing that the blond cowboy was walking back to join him while the other man knelt in front of one of the two safes, manipulating the tumblers.

          "Kyle, what're you doing?" Curry asked hotly, but soft enough not to disrupt his partner.

          "Me?" Sam asked, trying to look innocent.

          The man sighed.  "Quit mumblin'.  You want to get us arrested?"

          "For mumbling?" Sam asked.

          He glanced over at his partner, who looked up and gave the pair a short, angry poke of his head toward the far side of the room.  The blond looked back at Sam.  "Let's go over here," he said, heading back over to the windows, where he tugged the curtains back together to seal the crack.

          The two men stood in silence, Sam's gaze darting over the interior of the bank, searching for some explanation for his presence and trying to locate something, anything, that would tell him where he really was.  The dark-haired man continued to work at the safe.

          Outside he could hear the occasional sound of someone riding by on horseback. Then a freight wagon passed – or at least that was what the blond called it when Sam jumped at the unfamiliar sound of a mule team shuffling down the dirt street.

          Sam shook his head.  "Oh, boy."

          "Yeah, I'd worry, too," the blond said in response.  "Heyes looks pretty damned mad.  He usually has a safe open inside half-an-hour, if he can hear the tumblers—"

          "Sam?" Al's voice cut in on the cowboy's.

          "Just a minute," the physicist mumbled.

          "Kyle, why are you lookin' around like that and mumblin' to yourself?"

          "Uh…"

          With an amazing speed, the blond grabbed Sam's dust-covered jacket and jerked him closer.  "You know we can't disturb Heyes while he's workin'. This is the first time you've been first outlaw, do you want it to be your last?  As soon as Wheat's healthy, you'll go back to watchin' the horses."  He released Sam and smiled solicitously at him.

          Sam nodded, smoothing down his jacket and trying to piece the information he had together.  He was a man named Kyle.  He was an outlaw?  And…  "We're going to rob the bank?"

          The blond gave him the long-suffering look of a priest dealing with his favorite drunk.  "O' course we are.  Why else would we be here in the middle of the night?  Applyin' for a job?"

          "Uh, isn't this sort of thing dangerous?"

          The blond's brow furrowed.  "Kyle, you feelin' okay?  That explosion must've rattled your brains more 'n Wheat's.  You know we go in at night so we can avoid trouble.  Heyes and me ain't ever had to kill anybody, and we don't want to start now.  We sneak in, Heyes cracks the safe, and we're gone hours before they know what's happened.  But Heyes can't hear the tumblers if you keep talkin' to yourself."

          "Shh," Heyes hissed at the two men.

          "Sorry," Sam called, shifting uncomfortably from boot to boot.  He was a bank robber?  He was going to help rob the Bank of Fort Worth?  _Al, where are you?_

          "Kid?" came a whispered voice.

          "Yeah, Heyes?"

          The dark-haired man stood and strode over to join them.  "I can hear _you_ just as well as I can hear _him_ ," he told his partner, nodding at Sam, his hand on his hips.  He leaned in closer to the physicist.  "Kyle, what the devil are you doing?"

          "Nothing," Sam said truthfully.

          "Nothing?  You call gawking, mumbling, coughing, and clearing your throat nothing?  How many times have I told you, I have to have complete silence, especially when I'm working on a Pierce and Hamilton '76.  No more first outlaw for you."  He turned to glare once at his partner before returning to the large metal safe.

          "Sam?  Are you there?" Al called in a worried voice.

          "Uh-huh," Beckett replied, softly coughing afterwards and wandering away form the blond.

          "Al, what's going on?  Why aren't I there with you?"

          "Ziggy's working on that.  She says we're in the same place, but we're in different times."

          "That's impossible.  I _have_ to leap in my own lifetime, and this is _not_ in my lifetime – yours either."

          "Thanks.  I'll have you know it's not how old you are, it's how old you feel that counts."

          "I feel about a hundred and forty."

          "Uh, yeah, that's about right."

          "What?"

          "Ziggy says—"  There was a pause, and Sam could hear the project observer beating Ziggy's hand-link against his palm.  It beeped and squealed.

          "What?"

          "Ziggy's calculated that there's a 93% chance that exactly one hundred years separate us."

          "What's the date?"

          "June seventeenth, 1983."

          "So this is June seventeenth, 1883?"

          "That's Ziggy's guess."

          "Oh boy."  Sam sagged against the wall.  "What am I going to do?  These guys are robbing the bank."

          "Robbing the bank?"  Al voice clearly conveyed his boyish excitement.  "Sam, you lucky dog.  You're involved in a real saga of the American frontier!  I wish I was there.  Whose gang are you in?"

          "I don't know," Sam replied, feeling nowhere near as enthusiastic.  "They call each other Heyes and Kid."

          "I'll see if Ziggy can find anything.  The records aren't going to be that complete.  I was hoping for Butch Cassidy."

          "Thanks, Al," Sam breathed.

          The Kid pointed a finger at him, then placed it to his lips, commanding the physicist to silence.

          _Now what do I do?_ Sam silently asked the darkened rafters above him. _A bank robbery?  Maybe I'm supposed to stop them._

          "Yes!" came an excited but suppressed whisper.

          Curry walked over to join his partner as he swung open the door to the safe he'd been working on.  Together the two men emptied the monetary contents into a large canvas bag, leaving behind the bonds, deeds and other papers.

          _Outlaws with scruples_ , Sam thought, slightly amused.  "Al?"

          "Yeah, Sam?"

          "Kyle, who're you talkin' to?" Heyes asked, stepping out of the darkness.

          "Uh, nobody," Sam replied nervously as he watched the blond cowboy close the safe.

          "You have company?" Al asked.

          "Uh-huh."

          "What?" Heyes asked.

          "I… I— I was talking to myself," Sam replied quickly.

          Heyes nodded.  "I'm sure you appreciate the conversation, Kyle, but do you think you could keep it down while I work on that Pierce and Hamilton '78?  I haven't been able to open one of these new models."  The man glanced at the second larger safe, annoyance clear on his face.  "Why they had to go and fix the tumblers so a decent, hard-working outlaw can't hear them is beyond me.  It's downright criminal."  He smiled at his own joke and waited for Kyle to do the same.

          Sam merely nodded and Heyes shook his head, stalking away.

          These men hadn't killed anyone, the physicist reminded himself.  So they couldn't be all bad.  Beside, he felt himself warming to the pair despite his objections to their career choices.

          "I'll try and be quieter," he called softly.

          "Thank you, Kyle.  I really appreciate that."  Heyes shook his head again and returned to the second safe.

          "Sam?" echoed the observer's voice.

          "Yeah?" Sam whispered back.

          "Why are you whispering?"

          Sam wandered closer to the corner.  "Because they think my head's rattled, and I'm talking to myself; that's why."

          "Listen to this," Al said, his voice dripping with envy.  "This is great, Sam.  You're part of the Devil's Hole Gang."

          "So?"

          Al sighed.  "Sam, you have no sense of adventure, you know that?" he chastised before continuing.  "Hannibal Heyes and Jed 'Kid' Curry ran the Devil's Hole Gang in the late 1870s and early 1880s, but they left the outlaw trail and went straight.  After three years of dodging posses and bounty hunters, the governor of Wyoming granted them an amnesty in 1888.  The governors of California and the Arizona Territory had already granted them pardons before that, for 'services rendered in the pursuit of law and order and the best interest of the state or territory.'  Whatever that means."

          Sam leaned into the corner.  "They're going to go straight?"

          "Yep, in…"  Sam heard Al pause while he punched out the calculations on the remote control.  "…twenty months."

          "But why am I here?  _How_ can I be here?"

          "Ziggy can't answer that, Sam.  The best we could come with is…" Al trailed off.

          "What?"  Pushing off, Sam walked over to the large desk, and leaned back against the lightly polished surface.

          "Well, Ziggy thinks He did it," he said, so softly it was hard to hear.

          "Ziggy did it?"

          "No," Al said, clearly uncomfortable with the idea.  "God did it."

          "God?"

          Heyes and Curry both glanced over at the physicist.  Sam grinned and wandered back to the corner.

          "Well, you leaped in time and place to Fort Worth, but somehow 1883 is folded back on top of 1983 and you're there with Heyes and Curry and I'm here… you lucky dog.  I wish—"

          "Al, how do I get home?"

          "Here?"

          "No, not the imaging chamber, back to leaping in my own lifetime?  What am I in 1883 to do?"  He stifled a sneeze.

          "We don't know," Al admitted, adding quickly.  "But we're working on it."

          "Al," Sam half-growled.

          "We don't have much information on the man in the waiting room, Sam.  His name's Kyle Murtry, and besides that and the fact that he _really_ needs a bath we don't have anything on him in the databases."

          The time-hopping scientist scrubbed at his nose.  "Great.  He's obviously a part of the gang."

          "I know.  Ziggy's trying to run some scenarios.  Sam?"

          "Yeah?"

          "What's it like?  Really?  When I was a kid, I used to dream about being a cowboy in the Old West, or a good-hearted badman, a desperado with just his horse and his trusty six-gun, riding—"

          "It's dusty, Al.  Very dusty."

          Curry's gloved-covered hand descended on Sam's shoulder.  "You have somethin' on your mind?" he asked, dragging Sam over to where Heyes was seated on the floor, his head resting against the cold metal.

          "Uh, I'm sorry," Sam apologized.  "How's it going?"

          "Usual for a '78," Heyes mumbled.  "Haven't found a way to open it without blowing off the doors."

          Sam's eyes widened.  "You're going to blow it up?"

          "Yep," Heyes said, looking up at Sam, a twinkle in his eye.  "What's the matter, Kyle, that last time leave you a little skittish?"

          "Uh, yeah… yeah, I guess so, but in an enclosed space like this, a blast—"

          "Kyle, just leave the nitro to Heyes this time, will ya?"

          Heyes ignored the comment.  "Kyle, why don't you take a look out back.  Make sure no one's watching the bank, and check on the horses.  When this blows we're only going to have a couple of minutes to grab what's left and get out of here before the whole town's awake."

          "Oh boy," Sam said softly, heading toward the back of the building.  Opening the door, he scanned the nearly black alley.  A full moon gave him enough light to see that no one else was out.  Easing outside, he ignored his pounding heart and inched his way past the three waiting horses and down the side of the rough wood building to stare out into the main street.

          What if he got caught?  Would they shoot him on sight?  Would they hang him?  And what if they pulled it off?  What if—?

          "Sam?"

          The physicist jumped with a half-swallowed cry.  "Al?"

          "Who'd you expect?" the observer asked, his grin echoing in with the tone.  "The Lone Ranger?"

          "Very funny.  Where are you?"

          "Fort Worth, just like you are, but a hundred years in the future.  I told you—"

          "You're standing behind a bank and across from a livery stable?"

          "No, I'm in the middle of a downtown intersection."

          "What do I do?"

          "What Heyes told you to do.  See if anyone's watching, then go back and stand with the horses so they don't run off when Heyes blows the safe.  Oh, this is great, Sam.  I really wish I was there.  Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry…  Did you know—?"

          "Al, _why_ am I helping them rob a bank?"

          "Beats me.  Just roll with it, Sam.  Enjoy."

          "Enjoy?" he grumbled, scanning the street for the last time.  It was quiet and empty.  "You're not the one who's going to get shot at," he grouched, returning to the horses.  Sam patted their necks, then gave in to the curiosity and returned to the inside of the bank.

          "It's all clear," he whispered.

          The two outlaws both started, the dark-haired man nearly fumbling the small glass jar he held an inch from the top of the Pierce and Hamilton '78.

          "Kyle," Heyes growled, "get out there with the horses, I'm about ready to blow the doors off—"

          "Blow the doors off?"

          The outlaw lowered the jar into place, then turned, disbelieving, to stare at the scientist.  "Kyle, what's gotten into you?  You're sure you weren't rattled a little by that last explosion?"

          "Uh—"

          "You know that's how we get inside a safe.  But this…"  He turned a sour look on the rectangular mass of metal.  "… _thing_ is built different.  When I use enough nitro to blow the doors off, it's too much and the paper inside gets destroyed and the coins go flying…"  Heyes stopped.  " _Why_ am I explaining this to you?"

          "Why don't you put the nitroglycerine inside?" Sam asked, several calculations rushing through his head.

          "Inside?" Curry asked, jabbing a finger in the direction of the rear door.  "Kyle, get back to the horses—"

          "I thought about that," Heyes interrupted.  "Then it would blow the doors off, but the rest of the safe might be all right, but it's too dangerous to pour the nitro through that crack, and—"

          Curry looked at the leader of the Devil's Hole Gang like he'd just turned green and sprouted wings.  He was talking to Kyle, about how to blow a safe?

          "Not if you created a vacuum first," Sam said, the problem and possible solution crystallizing in his mind's eye.

          "A vacuum…" Heyes muttered.

          Sam grinned.  "If you pumped all the air out of the safe—"

          Heyes picked up the idea.  "Then it would be like getting water to run uphill for a sluice.  The nitro would run into the inside of the safe and…"  He paused, his handsome face wrinkling with frustration.  "But even if I had a pump, which I don't, how would I know when I had all the air out?"

          "A basic math primer should give you the formula," Sam teased.  "Been to school?"

          Heyes scowled.  "You should talk," he snapped.

          Sam opened his mouth to reply when the familiar tingle swept over him and he leaped.

          "Care to explain?" Heyes asked.

          Kyle looked around the bank, his eyes wide.  "Lordie, Heyes, I think I died!"

          Heyes rolled his eyes, then patted Curry's shoulder.  "Take him outside, I'll be along shortly."

          "Right," the Kid said, grabbing Kyle's jacket and dragging him out.

 

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

 

          Sam blinked, his eyes adjusting to the darkness.  "Al?"

          "Hi, Sam," the observer said smugly.

          Beckett's eyes narrowed suspiciously.  "What?" he asked, then realized he could see the man.  "Al, I can see you!"

          "Yep.  You're back in 1983."

          "This is Fort Worth?" Sam asked, looking around at the modern city around him.

          "Yep," Al said, then motioned toward the building behind them.  "And that's the Bank of Fort Worth."

          Sam's eyes traveled up the side of the multi-story building.  "Wow."

          "Yeah, but take a look at this," Al prompted, jabbing his cigar at a bronze plaque embedded in the wall.

          Sam stepped forward and read aloud: "The Bank of Forth Worth, founded in 1867 and robbed in June 1883 by Hannibal Heyes, Kid Curry, and the Devil's Hole Gang.  It is believed by historians that Hannibal Heyes devised a new method for blowing the then state-of-the-art Pierce and Hamilton 1878 safe.  Heyes, Curry, and the Devil's Hole Gang put this new method to the test in July 1884 in Denver, Colorado, escaping with over $17,500.  A few months later Heyes and Curry mended their ways and went straight.  It took nearly three years, but the two most successful outlaws in the history of the West eventually were granted amnesty.  In all the trains and banks they robbed, Heyes and Curry never shot anyone, and this weighed heavily in their favor.  When asked why they chose to leave the outlaw trail, Heyes explained that safes were getting too scientific to crack quickly and safely."

          Sam stepped back and grinned.  "Oops," he said.  "Guess it didn't hurt anything."

          "Yeah, oops," Al chuckled.  "And it helped."

          "Oh?"

          Al grinned, his cigar poking proudly from the side of his mouth.  "Nope.  In fact, our budget director just pulled off a minor miracle himself, getting Congress to okay an extension of our federal budget, thanks to one of his close friends serving in the Senate."

          "Oh?" Sam asked.

          "Yeah, Michael Heyes can be very persuasive when he wants to, and Jason Curry is a powerful senator."

          "Heyes and Curry?"

          Al shrugged as Sam felt the tug and leaped to his next adventure.

 

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

 

          "Heyes, you ain't really thinkin' about takin' Kyle's advice, are you?" Curry asked, staring intently at his partner.

          Heyes looked up from the seventh grade math primer he was hunched over.  "Kid, I once read a about a man who was blown up in a mining accident."

          "So?" Curry asked, walking over to pour himself a cup of coffee.  If Heyes didn't start talking sense, he decided, he wasn't letting the man out of Devil's Hole.

          "So," Heyes said, turning and resting his folded arms on the back of the chair. "The man hadn't had any education at all, just like Kyle.  But you know what he could do after that explosion?"

          "No, Heyes, what could he do?" the Kid asked skeptically.

          "He could add figures faster than a banker."

          Curry carried his cup back and sat down across form his cousin.  "Heyes, that's impossible."

          "Not according to the reporter."

          "You've seen what they've written about us," Curry countered.

          "Still.  Just think, Kid, maybe that blast shook loose one good idea, and Kyle gave it to us.  Now that's a gift of the highest order.  We'd be negligent not to act on it.  Rude even."

          Curry shook his head.  "You get it all figured out, Heyes, _then_ we'll see if it works."

          "Oh, it'll work, Kid," Heyes said with a smile.  "I can feel it."

 

The End


End file.
